Liminal Space
by lajulie
Summary: Han is frozen; Leia navigates the space in between as she returns to the Alliance. Individual drabbles/ficlets set just after the end of ESB, originally posted to Tumblr for Scoundress Saturday and in response to various prompts.
1. Chapter 1 - Almost

_Watching the Falcon depart, Leia decides that she's done living with "almost."_

* * *

**Almost**

_Almost_, Leia realized, had pretty much been the defining aspect of the trip, this emergency evacuation turned desperate escape, turned equipment failure, turned passionate interlude, turned Imperial trap, turned near-tragedy. The only reason it was only _almost_ a tragedy was that they'd rescued Luke from his perch below Cloud City and Han had been taken away still alive.

Of course, Leia and Han's relationship had practically been built on _almost_s. If she had a credit for every time she and Han had almost kissed, or for every time she'd been on the precipice of admitting something she'd sworn to herself she wouldn't, or every time she'd wondered if Han had been on the verge of admitting something himself (he had been, she'd verified later), she'd be able to fund the whole Alliance herself.

Now, as Leia stood in Luke's room on the medical frigate watching the _Falcon_ take off, she was grateful that she'd finally thrown the almosts to the wayside during their slow crawl to Bespin. As much as she regretted waiting so long to finally take the leap and confront her feelings for Han, she could only imagine how much worse she would be feeling right now had she left her walls up. If she were standing here knowing that she could have been loved, but had chosen the false safety of her fears. But _no_, she'd let him in, and she'd finally said the words that she'd felt for years but had never been able to tell him before: _I love you_. In front of the Goddess and Darth Vader and everybody.

Luke put his arm around her as they continued to gaze at the stars the _Falcon_ had just left behind. Her friend's presence was comforting. He knew about her love for Han; she'd told him. Crazily enough, after going to such lengths to deny any attachment to Han in the past, she couldn't seem to _stop_ telling people now.

Something fundamental had changed for Leia. She was no longer willing to settle for _almost_. Safety was an illusion; there was nothing safe, not anywhere. But safety wasn't the point. Living was. Loving was. And she was still afraid—"everyone's afraid, Leia, anybody who claims they ain't is a liar," Han had said once. But their love had made her brave.


	2. Chapter 2 - Keep Your Eyes on Me

_With one look, Han and Leia could say all they needed to. Prompt: "Keep your eyes on me."_

* * *

**Keep Your Eyes on Me**

"I'm in love with Han," Leia said, feeling for a moment like she was practicing one of the Old Religions and Luke was a priest. But any contrition she felt was from the thought that Luke's feelings could be hurt. She wasn't sorry, really; she'd never be sorry.

Luke's smile spread across his face, briefly lifting the cloud that he seemed to have picked up on Bespin. "Finally," he said, and touched her hand, looking like that earnest young man who'd burst into her cell again. "He's in love with you too, you know," he added.

"I know," Leia said, and heard Han echo the words in her head. She looked up at Luke again. "How long have you known?"

"A while," he said.

"How—"

That earnest smile came back, Luke's eyes gaining a twinkle. "I don't know. You two drive each other crazy, but when it comes down to it, you always seem so—in sync."

* * *

"Keep your eyes on me," Han had directed on one of their earliest missions together, as Leia chased a group of Imperials across a catwalk to distract them from the charges he and Chewie were setting. She had, and at his nod, changed course, leading the Imperials right into the path of the blast.

Later, she'd said it back to him as they prepared to swoop down on a set of guards to break into a data installation.

Before long, they knew one another's moves and instincts so well that no words had been necessary; a certain look, and they knew to strike, to hold firm, to make their move. _Keep your eyes on me_.

Luke was right. Before and after the mission, they squabbled and raged, but during the mission, that look was all they needed to communicate, to know that they had each other's backs.

They'd given each other countless other kinds of looks in the six weeks leading up to Bespin—utter frustration, anger, astonishment, tenderness, desire, love, fear. But _that look_ had resurfaced in the red-gold light of the carbon freezing chamber, as puffs of gases swirled around them.

There was no need to say it—_keep your eyes on me_—for Leia could not tear hers away. She was burning his image into her brain, preserving him far better than the carbonite ever could. Reassuring him as he reassured her: _I'll be okay. Trust me. I've got you._ All those words, unspoken but known. In sync.

So in sync that as they dragged him from her lips, she knew immediately the words that needed to go with him, that belonged with him: "I love you."

He sank into the chamber, his eyes still on her, his words confirming her love was known, his look—_that_ look—a silent promise to come back.

This mission wasn't over.


	3. Chapter 3 - Eclipse

_Before Leia says a word, Luke can sense the change in her, her new alignment. Luke's POV of the last scene of ESB, written for Scoundress Saturday in response to the prompt "Syzygy" (the alignment of heavenly bodies)._

* * *

**Eclipse**

The droid pricked each of fingers of Luke's new prosthetic to test their response. Even though he was watching it happen, the tiny jolts of pain he felt startled him. "Ow," he said softly.

It was his hand, but not. With the wrist compartment open he could see the connections to each of the digits firing as he moved them, see the mechanics of how they were joined; he could feel the sensory input from his new hand, yet know it was not quite _of_ him.

In a similar way, he could sense the energy coming from Leia, who had moved to the viewscreen to watch the _Falcon_ as it departed. Connected to him, even more deeply and personally than before, but not _of_ him. Her energy had changed since Hoth, profoundly so, but if anything she had become more _Leia_, her own essence distilled down.

Even amid the delirious haze of the last thirty-six hours, with Luke himself stuck in an internal cacophony of voices (Vader's, calling him _Son_; Ben's soft lies about his father; Uncle Owen and Yoda in strange agreement: _You should never have come_), Luke could sense her shift. Her new alignment.

Her sadness ran deep—oh, so very deep, and he could only sense the glimmer off the top of that well. Her fear was great, too, though she'd put it aside to do what must be done: guiding Luke to the medical bunk to dress his wounds, helping Chewie bring the ship back to the Alliance, enduring what he'd heard was a relentless debriefing, bringing every ounce of influence and rhetoric she had to bear on freeing Lando and securing supplies for the _Falcon_, staying at Luke's bedside through the night and during his surgery this morning. But with her fear and sadness, there was a new element to the fire inside her. Two suns joining, an eclipse that burned brighter than either one alone.

_Han._

Leia would be the first to tell you—rightly—that she didn't need another person to be fiercely, beautifully herself. Yet from the first moment they'd bickered in her cellblock, Han had managed to reach some spark within her, stop it from dying. Nurture it. People thought, rumors said that it was a sexual spark alone: _All she needs is a good fuck, and he's just the one to give it to her_. But people who knew her, knew them, understood better. Saw that Han loved all of Leia, the spark inside and the layers she used to protect it. Saw that Leia loved all of Han, even as it confounded her, terrified her.

Luke walked over to where she stood, her eyes not leaving the _Falcon_. He put an arm around her, watched her face for a moment. Han was frozen, lost, somewhere unknown out in the universe before them. Yet his fire was here, combined with Leia's, kept safely in her heart, warming everything around it.

Luke had his own demons left to fight, but in some strange way, this change in Leia filled him with a hope he'd not thought possible again.

Together, they watched the _Falcon_ disappear into hyperspace, then silently looked at the stars for a few minutes.

Finally, Leia turned to Luke. "I need to tell you something," she said, still troubled, but radiant as the stars behind her.


End file.
